Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1887-08-25
THE COUNTERFEITER.
TALK WITH BRoCKWAY, THE FA-
NOUS MAKER OF QUEER"


Successful Imitation of the Famous 's1
housekeeping the Elaborate Lathe
Work on the Greenback-Counterfei
Foreign Moneys-Bank Notes.
Among the men who have been claSsed as
great criminals no one has had wider fame
than William E. Brockway. He has been
very rich man, he is a very clever one, his
years approach 20, he is Just ending short
sentence in Sing Sing. Is he a great crookl
do not know l have been accustomed to
meet him in a journalistic way at intervals
reaching over ten years, and once asked
him if he was a great rascal He said no.
am not bound to believe him, nor are you;
but never knew him to lie in anything, and
am bound to believe that he does not re-
gard himself as bad man.
Brockway is credited with the counterfeit
ing of the famous 81 bonds. 1t was not his
biggest job by any means. but it was success
full. They were bonds issued by the govern
ment early in 1861, and the treasury depsrt-
ment redeemed no end of the bogus ones be-
fore accident betrayed them. These bonds
were not registered, and the plates from
which they were taken were never found.
Indeed, the supposition almost takes the
power of positive statement that the original
plates were used with the guilty knowledge of
a then official who lives now in great splendor
in London and is a frequent guest in Marlboro
house and at Sandringham. However that
may be, the fact remains that the United
States treasury did buy bogus bonds under
the administration of Salmon P. Chase, and
these bonds, if not counterfeit, were illegal
WON'T TELL IT ALL
1t is something more than can reasonably
be expected that Brockway will tell all he
knows, and even if he did he would, as is
customary with his guild, hint at so much un-
revealed that his interviewer could never
know when he had pumped him dry. For
example, he says that the white line which
encircles the seal of scroll work. called the
counter, on the national currency is named as
one of the actual projections against counter
feiting-as matter of fact the skillful coun-
terfeiter has no difficulty in printing that line
white asked him how they did It, but be
said there were enough who didn't know how
to make the knowledge too valuable for news
paper columns. l asked him for his opinion
as an expert of the security of the paper cur
rency.
"There are no experts" he said; Hthere are
fair judge, but no expert can tell the differ
ence between two lines made by ruling ma
chine. The geometrical lathe work which is
the great security on bank work is mechanic
ally cut with a lathe that costs from IS, 900 to
$1,000. Witnesses, called as experts, have
sworn that this work can't be initiated, but
there are a dozen men in New York who can
make so perfect copy of it that he who made
the original can't tell it, and the imitator
need not be an artist either. But that is not
great danger to paper money. The differ
ent styles of chemical engraving are now
almost familiar knowledge, and it is well
known that by such processes the elaborate
lathe work on the greenback can be copied as
accurately as manuscript can be copied photo
graphically, and when printed in carbon or
colored inks are about equal to the original
INITIATING SCROLL WORK
"The fact is a man cannot make that which
less able man cannot counterfeit, although
he could not create the original For exam
pie, if you will examine the scroll cut by the
geometrical lathe you will see in the seal that
some eight parts are all duplicates of the
other, that in these divisions there is simply
repetition of the same forms and intersec-
tons. The imitator in cutting his plate
would certainly never go to the trouble of
cutting a complete circle. He would make
one of the divisions and then repeat it in the
chemical printing The most difficult thing
to make in counterfeiting are the likeneSses.
The infinite variety of human expression,
which can be created by line, the faintest
shadow, the merest deviation in the angle of
a curve of the lip the set of the nostrils, are
so far from arbitrary that one can only be
copied with infinite pains"
"What is an approximate figure represent
ing the amount of foreign moneys counter
feited here?'
at is enormous. 1 have the authority of
the Brazilian minister for the statement that
S200,0O0.0Q0 of counterfeit money is circu-
lated in Brazil Money for the South Amer
lean countries has all been liberally counter
feited, and even Bank of England notes But
it is curious fact that the counterfeited
money of foreign countries emanating from
here is nearly exclusively of those who have
come here to have their money made.
"Bank note counterfeiting was most preva-
lent during the reign of the state banks, but
the boys had to hurry up or the bank would
fail before they could get their stuff out. I
was caught twice in that way and had no re-
dress, as the banks had no assets. The coun-
terfeits then were generally poor and there
was seldom an attempt at imitation. When
an imitation was attempted by an amateur,
who had picked up engraving, he would Sc
lect his note, oil it to make it transparent,
paste it on plate face down, and with fine
needle tusing MICROSCOPE he would prick
through the lines on the note and then follow
the dots with a graver, which would repro
duce the lines. Of course the exquisite etch-
ing of the landscape the beautiful lines of
the portraits and the delicate ruling were lost,
but there we're very few of the dear public
who could tell hawk from handsaw"-
New York Cor. Philadelphia Times.